Analysis of the Potential Use of Social Networking for the Success of Strategic Business Planning in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Abstract

The availability of information technology in supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially in developing countries, to improve the business performance and overcome the business problem is an interesting issue to be revealed and analyzed. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, blogs, etc. which today can be said as a media to promote and sell products and services for any type and scale of business, seems still not to be used optimally by SMEs. Classical problems such as financial aspects, human resources, marketing and technology are obstacles that unable to be solved completely by SMEs. This study is an experimental study that attempt to raise the issue of the social networking model that can help SMEs in making strategic business plan to be success. The purpose of this study is to investigate the existing problems, provide treatments, observe, examine and analyze the extent to which SMEs use social networking in order to formulate a successful strategic business plan. The data sample is SMEs which already utilizing social networking but not optimal or SMEs that had never utilize social networking to develop strategic business plans. The selected samples is about 25-30 associations, clusters, cooperatives, associations of craftsmen or similar businesses which are chosen purposively. The location of research is 6 districts and 1 municipality (totally 5.667 km2) in the residential of Surakarta, Central Java. The results of the first phase of research obtained from the field indicate that the majority of SMEs surveyed have not made social networking as an effective medium to assist in strategic business planning. The main cause is due to geographical location constraints, especially telecommunications infrastructure, human resources dealing with doubt and uncertainty as to the success of information technology investment to be used.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s2p233